“the history of Sun Village is the history of the Antelope Valley and the history of America…[it] should be sung throughout the valley.” 

This quote, given by James Brooks to the Los Angeles Times in 2012, is the premise of this digital history exhibit. Sun Village has a remarkable history that both helps understand the Antelope Valley and Los Angeles more broadly.

Unfortunately, the reality of historical records is such that much of this history is dispersed, unavailable, or organized for different purposes. 

This project, therefore, attempts to reorganize and make publicly available much of the history of Sun Village in ways that have previously not been possible. 

We acknowledge that this is only a small part of this place’s story, and that much of its history is held elsewhere, in people’s memories and oral histories, on paper documents and records that we don’t have, and in other forms and formats that exist outside of this project. While we encourage people to give us feedback, add or suggest edits to these materials, and so on, our baseline hope is that this site constitutes a helpful introduction to this important place. 

The work in progress has been created by Rahim Kurwa, an Assistant Professor of Criminology, Law, and Justice at UIC; Fatima Basharet, a research assistant on the project; and Dhwanit Sharma, a graduate assistant with UIC’s Digital Humanities Initiative. Funding to support this work has been provided by UIC’s Institute for the Humanities and Digital Humanities Initiative. We also thank the California African American Museum for advice and guidance as well. 

Contact us at rak [at] uic.edu.